BCHunterFSJ
04-07-2011, 10:57 AM
As promised in an earlier post, here is the story of my hunt in Spain. As you will see, it did not work out the way I had hoped it would...
A Hunt in Spain
Another hunting dream was coming true for me in 2011. I was going to Spain to hunt ibex and mouflon. Ibex are members of the goat family native to the Near East and Mediterranean Europe. There are four varieties of ibex in Spain, and I would be hunting the Southeastern or Sierra Nevada type. Mouflon are wild sheep originally found in the Middle East and later introduced to the southern parts of Europe. I made a booking with Alfonso (Alf) of Spain Outfitters the previous year and now it was time for another grand adventure. As usual, my wife was accompanying me. We flew to Madrid, rented a car, and proceeded to explore Spain and Portugal where we eagerly sampled their delicious tapas and fine rioja wines.
We eventually reached the historic city called Granada where we met up with our outfitter and were driven into the Sierra Nevada range, containing Spain’s highest mountains. Our destination was the little town of Pueblo de Don Fadrique and the hunting estate called the Finca La Cizana, where Alf had hunting rights. As far as I could figure out, there is no such thing as crown land in Spain and all hunting is done on private land. The estate where we would be hunting was over 3000 hectares in area! The villa we were housed in belongs to a millionaire Spanish economist who is also an international hunter. When the king of Spain comes hunting, he stays in the same building!
The next day we started the hunt. Our guide’s name was Andres who did not speak a word of English. Luckily, Alf was with us for the duration of the hunt as well. The mountains here are crisscrossed by numerous “roads”, many of which were only climbable in the old Land Rover’s Low Range four wheel drive. Most days started with us crawling up these trails to the top of a mountain and then glassing for hours. We spotted many animals every day – ibex, mouflons, fallow deer, red deer, and even aoudads. When a promising animal was spotted the stalks were on! We quickly learned that the game were extremely wary here, and most times by the time we got to where we thought they should be, they were long gone. Other times they were just not up to our trophy standards. By the end of the third day I still had not seen anything to shoot at…
The fourth day was the beginning of the end, when my Spanish dreams went up in smoke! From our high vantage point we spotted a herd of about a dozen ibex, and a couple of them really looked good. After a very lengthy stalk, Alf and I got to within 100 meters of them. He pointed out the biggest animal, set up the shooting sticks and told me to shoot. I did, but at the recoil lost the sight picture and did not see whether or not I had made a hit. But Alf was jumping up and down and congratulating me and saying that he had seen the animal drop. Meanwhile, very uncharacteristically, the rest of the ibex stood up and posed for us before
slowly heading up the mountain. We made our way across a deep ravine to claim my trophy; except that it wasn’t there… Guide Andres joined us for the search, but it was futile. However, we did find a few drops of blood and then nothing else. To say that I was devastated would be an understatement…
On the fifth day the outfitter brought out Franco the tracking dog (a Teckel) and we set off to try and find my animal. However, when the blood trail petered out, there was no more tracking to do. After a very dejected lunch we set off to look for a mouflon. And we found one; and Alf assured me that it was either a high silver or gold medal trophy. This time the stalk was easy and soon we were watching two gorgeous rams feeding in a little field, less than 150 meters away and completely ignorant of our presence. The sticks went up, I shot, and missed! Alf shouted at me to shoot again at the now running through the thick pines animal, and I did. All we found was a couple of drops of blood… I was so upset that my wife thought I was going to have a heart attack! On the sixth and last day, out came Franco the Wonder Dog, who once again with only a couple of blood drops at his disposal, quickly lost the trail.
So what happened? Well, I’m not going to make any excuses. It was nobody’s fault but my own. But it did hurt! I wounded two magnificent animals, lost my Spanish hunting dreams, and still had to pay the trophy fees (5000 Euros) on the lost animals (even though they were only very lightly hit). All in all, it was for me an ethical, a personal, and a financial disaster. But no excuses… I can, however, think of some reasons why this may have happened and can hopefully learn from my mistakes. Firstly, I was unfamiliar with the firearm. I did not bring my own, using one that the outfitter provided. It had a very sensitive hair trigger that I was not used to, and on the mouflon I believe that the rifle discharged before I had settled the cross hairs on a vital spot. Secondly, I was not used to shooting from sticks, but on the ibex I had no choice if I was to get a shot. Thirdly, taking a shot at an animal running through thick bush, even if your guide tells you to, was complete idiocy. If I hadn’t fired there would have been no blood and I would have gone on to hunt another mouflon and maybe redeem myself.
And so ends the sad story of my failed Spanish hunt…
A Hunt in Spain
Another hunting dream was coming true for me in 2011. I was going to Spain to hunt ibex and mouflon. Ibex are members of the goat family native to the Near East and Mediterranean Europe. There are four varieties of ibex in Spain, and I would be hunting the Southeastern or Sierra Nevada type. Mouflon are wild sheep originally found in the Middle East and later introduced to the southern parts of Europe. I made a booking with Alfonso (Alf) of Spain Outfitters the previous year and now it was time for another grand adventure. As usual, my wife was accompanying me. We flew to Madrid, rented a car, and proceeded to explore Spain and Portugal where we eagerly sampled their delicious tapas and fine rioja wines.
We eventually reached the historic city called Granada where we met up with our outfitter and were driven into the Sierra Nevada range, containing Spain’s highest mountains. Our destination was the little town of Pueblo de Don Fadrique and the hunting estate called the Finca La Cizana, where Alf had hunting rights. As far as I could figure out, there is no such thing as crown land in Spain and all hunting is done on private land. The estate where we would be hunting was over 3000 hectares in area! The villa we were housed in belongs to a millionaire Spanish economist who is also an international hunter. When the king of Spain comes hunting, he stays in the same building!
The next day we started the hunt. Our guide’s name was Andres who did not speak a word of English. Luckily, Alf was with us for the duration of the hunt as well. The mountains here are crisscrossed by numerous “roads”, many of which were only climbable in the old Land Rover’s Low Range four wheel drive. Most days started with us crawling up these trails to the top of a mountain and then glassing for hours. We spotted many animals every day – ibex, mouflons, fallow deer, red deer, and even aoudads. When a promising animal was spotted the stalks were on! We quickly learned that the game were extremely wary here, and most times by the time we got to where we thought they should be, they were long gone. Other times they were just not up to our trophy standards. By the end of the third day I still had not seen anything to shoot at…
The fourth day was the beginning of the end, when my Spanish dreams went up in smoke! From our high vantage point we spotted a herd of about a dozen ibex, and a couple of them really looked good. After a very lengthy stalk, Alf and I got to within 100 meters of them. He pointed out the biggest animal, set up the shooting sticks and told me to shoot. I did, but at the recoil lost the sight picture and did not see whether or not I had made a hit. But Alf was jumping up and down and congratulating me and saying that he had seen the animal drop. Meanwhile, very uncharacteristically, the rest of the ibex stood up and posed for us before
slowly heading up the mountain. We made our way across a deep ravine to claim my trophy; except that it wasn’t there… Guide Andres joined us for the search, but it was futile. However, we did find a few drops of blood and then nothing else. To say that I was devastated would be an understatement…
On the fifth day the outfitter brought out Franco the tracking dog (a Teckel) and we set off to try and find my animal. However, when the blood trail petered out, there was no more tracking to do. After a very dejected lunch we set off to look for a mouflon. And we found one; and Alf assured me that it was either a high silver or gold medal trophy. This time the stalk was easy and soon we were watching two gorgeous rams feeding in a little field, less than 150 meters away and completely ignorant of our presence. The sticks went up, I shot, and missed! Alf shouted at me to shoot again at the now running through the thick pines animal, and I did. All we found was a couple of drops of blood… I was so upset that my wife thought I was going to have a heart attack! On the sixth and last day, out came Franco the Wonder Dog, who once again with only a couple of blood drops at his disposal, quickly lost the trail.
So what happened? Well, I’m not going to make any excuses. It was nobody’s fault but my own. But it did hurt! I wounded two magnificent animals, lost my Spanish hunting dreams, and still had to pay the trophy fees (5000 Euros) on the lost animals (even though they were only very lightly hit). All in all, it was for me an ethical, a personal, and a financial disaster. But no excuses… I can, however, think of some reasons why this may have happened and can hopefully learn from my mistakes. Firstly, I was unfamiliar with the firearm. I did not bring my own, using one that the outfitter provided. It had a very sensitive hair trigger that I was not used to, and on the mouflon I believe that the rifle discharged before I had settled the cross hairs on a vital spot. Secondly, I was not used to shooting from sticks, but on the ibex I had no choice if I was to get a shot. Thirdly, taking a shot at an animal running through thick bush, even if your guide tells you to, was complete idiocy. If I hadn’t fired there would have been no blood and I would have gone on to hunt another mouflon and maybe redeem myself.
And so ends the sad story of my failed Spanish hunt…